Busy days

Last weekend we had our annual camping trip, called Bættel, in the forest of Finnskogen. It was as always great. We had a fabulous time, but too little sleep and perhaps a bit too much alcohol made sure that I was really tired on Sunday evening and Monday. Then on Tuesday already I had to get up really early in the morning (and what signifies as ‘really early’ in my universe these days is half past 7 in the morning!!) and go to Oslo, because me and my friend Dorthe had tickets for that evening’s big concert with Metallica.

Before going to the concert we had decided to go see “Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s end”. For those of you reading my notes regularly will remember that I saw this movie about 3 weeks ago, but I enjoyed it so much I was quite happy to see it again since Dorthe hadn’t seen it. And guess what, it was still excellent!

So, in the evening, Metallica. What can I say but magnificent. 40 000 people. The Gods of weather decided not to drown us (as they have been trying to do with most parts of Southern Norway for the last week) – and the guys on stage, they really know how to play good music and put on a great show! I really truly enjoyed this.

Today I got up at the hotel around 9, left around 10 and then went out to the Viking ship museum on Bygdøy. I spent almost two hours there with my notebook, studying the ships and the artefacts that were found with the ships. I’ve been planning to do this research for quite a while, as this is something I really needed to do for my Viking stories. I was tired, but it was still very inspiring and interesting to see these things for real. I also picked up a couple of books about Vikings.

And now I’m back home for a couple of days. On Monday I’m leaving for a 6 day trip that will among other things bring me to the area around the Trondheims fjord. This is also something I have to do as research for my Viking stories. I have never really visited that part of Norway, and as my Viking story “The Battle” is set at Steinkjer and Ørland, both places by the Trondheims fjord, I’ve really felt the need to go there and see the area with my own eyes. So I’m really looking forward to that.

The troublesome thing is that I’m running out of time to write my final dissertation for the MA. Don’t worry, I will get it done in time, but still, I don’t have as much time left as I would’ve liked to. I’m going on a long planned trip to Denmark and Germany from the 26th of July till the 1st of August. Originally this trip would’ve lasted till the 11th of August, but I’ve just had to cut it short to make sure that I get my dissertation done in time. Unfortunately this means that I won’t get to visit Untersteinach and Kulmbach this summer, which is something I’ve pretty much done every summer for the last, oh, fifteen years or so… Hopefully there will be time before next summer to go down there for a visit.

But my late summer/early autumn looks busy, and as if it wasn’t busy enough, on Tuesday I made it even more hectic. On the evening of Friday the 31st of August, I’ll be in London to see a play that’s recently been put on at the Duke of York’s theatre. The play’s called “In Celebration”, and in one of the leading roles we find… Orlando Bloom!! The play is only on from 5th of July till 15th of September, and I really just could not miss out on this opportunity to see Orlando Bloom live (oh well, with my typical luck he’ll probably be ill and out of the play on Friday the 31st of August, but let’s just keep our fingers crossed and hope not, yeah?). So, even though my autumn is already very busy, I just had to go to London to see this. I’m so excited about it; you can’t imagine how excited I am.

These are my days, and they’re most certainly busy, but it’s a good life, so I won’t complain.